13 July 2012 6:50 PM

Why to be against gay marriage is not bigoted

Last week, I went on radio to discuss the contentious issue of gay marriage. It is a difficult issue for me as I have a wonderful cousin who is ‘married’ to his long-time partner in California. And yet, even with that extraordinary example of love before me, I cannot be convinced that gay marriage is good for society.

Surprisingly, the radio debate was calm, rational and relatively good humoured. Ordinarily, such debates quickly descend into chaos, with accusations of ‘homophobia’ and ‘bigotry’ being hurled at those opposing changes to the traditional institution.

The reason why the radio debate proceeded smoothly was because we did not let emotion cloud the ideas. Too often, participants hop aboard their ideological bandwagon in an effort to silence their opponents. Too often, they allow righteous anger get in the way of a good argument.

Conservatives are no less prone to this than their liberal adversaries. Sometimes, they become so consumed with rage that they rant incoherently. In so doing, they lose a fight which is, I believe, theirs to win.

This means, as we go forward in this debate, that conservatives must stop treating liberal supporters of gay marriage as sinister ideologues. It was ridiculous for Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister to declare that gay marriage is the biggest civil rights issue of this generation. We should not, however, extend get exercised about those who offer rational arguments in their defence.

Liberals become irrational when they claim that their conservative adversaries are ‘homophobic’. For, by suggesting that his opponent is sick, rather than just someone with a different opinion, he undermines any possibility of logical debate. It would, of course, be tempting to counter that the liberal is ‘heterophobic’, but what useful purpose would such a slur serve?

Slurs don’t win debates, they merely stymie them. Far better, then, for both sides to mount credible arguments which shed light, rather than shade, on complex moral issues. But this, in turn, means that everything – and I mean everything - should be put on the table for discussion.

In the case of gay marriage, this demands that we have to stop pretending as though human nature did not exist. Thanks to the climate of fear which has for too long surrounded this debate, we have swallowed the line that human nature is not fixed, but can be manipulated to suit cultural trends. As such, we have forgotten that marriage is not an artificial institution, but one rooted in human nature.

For example, on a recent radio outing one Irish MP announced that he believes in the ‘intrinsic equality of sexuality’, and that ‘all forms of sexuality are completely equal’. Conservatives need not respond to those views with fits of vituperation. They are wide open to refutation on purely intellectual grounds.

The trick is not to lapse into an ideological default mode, but to confront such statements with philosophical authority. And confront them we must, because to concede that all forms of sexuality are intrinsically equal is to concede everything. For once that is agreed, you can no longer argue that marriage is a uniquely heterosexual institution.

The fact is, of course, that heterosexual sexuality is essentially different from its homosexual counterpart. While both are potential expressions of love, and while both are sources of pleasure, only heterosexual union is intrinsically goal-directed. That is to say, only heterosexual union is capable of natural procreation.

To deny that fact is to deny the fundamentals of human nature. But when we deny this, we forget why it is that heterosexual union possesses ‘intrinsic nuptiality’. Marriage stabilises a union which presupposes the creation of children, and which, when inoculated against infidelity by a solemn vow, secures the future of the family.

Put simply, marriage is not a culturally-formed institution but one which has its source in the requirements of nature. That is why it is simply mistaken to argue that ‘all forms of sexuality are completely equal’. For this is to imply that a form of sexuality which has no intrinsic aim is equal to that which does.

Altering the definition of marriage so as to include homosexual union is not, therefore, merely a cosmetic change. It is to radically redefine the very meaning of the institution. And it is to redefine it in such a way that the biological, philosophical and religious foundations of that institution are dismantled.

Now, I have no doubt that what I have just argued will be dismissed by some as ‘homophobic’. But as I discovered on radio last week, there are many within gay and liberal circles that are not afraid of rational debate. Like me, they value the views of their opponents, especially when they are couched in courtesy.

I hope it is in this spirit that the debate surrounding gay marriage will continue in the months ahead. For this is one debate which we conservatives cannot afford to lose. But we run the risk of doing so if, by responding to unfounded allegations, we sacrifice cold logic to hot fury.

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Mark Dooley

Dr Mark Dooley is an Irish philosopher, author and broadcaster. From 2003-2006, he wrote a controversial column on foreign affairs for the Sunday Independent. Since 2006, he has written for the Irish Daily Mail, where his popular 'Moral Matters' column appears weekly. He has held lectureships at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and at University College Dublin where he was John Henry Newman Scholar of Theology. His 8 books include a widely-acclaimed intellectual biography of English philosopher Roger Scruton, and a robust defence of traditional Catholicism in 'Why Be a Catholic?'